Introduction
Today we will explore something that might be the most fundamental capacity for transformation available to us as humans - metacognition.
This isn't just another mental skill or cognitive trick; it's the foundational skill that enables all other forms of growth.
What we're investigating today sits at the intersection of ancient wisdom traditions and cutting-edge cognitive science. It's where non-dual awareness meets practical success in the material world.
In today’s conversation, we will explore the illusory nature of the separate self and how this insight can be translated into the pragmatic question of how to function more effectively in everyday life.
So…
What is Metacognition?
At its core, metacognition is simply the skill of thinking about your thinking.
It's the capacity to observe your own mental processes as they unfold within the space of your mind. Metacognitive skills enable you to step outside of the stream of thought and observe it rather than being unconsciously swept along by it.
This is the tragedy of a human life.
Most humans live their entire lives inside their thinking, prisoners of their own mind, completely identified with every thought that arises in it.
"I think, therefore I am" - what was supposed to be a philosophical proposition appears to be a complete illusion that stems from the unexamined lived experience of most people. Their thoughts are invisible to them precisely because they are looking through their thoughts rather than at them.
Metacognition destroys this illusion. It creates a gap between awareness and thought. Awareness itself is the space in which freedom from your mental limitations becomes possible.
Non-Duality: The Ultimate Foundation for Metacognition
To truly understand metacognition, we need to recognize that it emerges from a more fundamental truth - the non-dual nature of consciousness itself.
Non-duality points to the recognition that the apparent separation between observer and observed is an illusion. There is no “the watcher” and “the watched”. There is only awareness and its contents, arising together in a seamless unity. The "you" that you have always believed yourself to be is itself just another appearance within awareness. The Ego, the Concept of Self, is an entity completely manufactured by the thinking mind.
This understanding isn't theoretical. It's experiential.
When you look for the thinker of your thoughts, what do you find? Only more thoughts.
When you search for the one who is aware, what do you discover? Only awareness itself.
Only from this realization, genuine metacognition becomes possible. Not as some kind of technique that is being practiced by a separate self, but as the natural expression of awareness that is being awakened to its own nature.
The mind creates this illusion of separation - a subject watching an object. It feels like there is a Separate “You” watching “The World” from the depth of your cranium through your eyeballs. But if you examine it closely your direct experience will expose that there is no such thing happening. Watching itself is the only thing that is taking place. Notice this. There is no “You” or “the World” - everything is One Experience unfolding in the Here and Now.
This is the paradox and power of metacognition rooted in non-dual awareness: there is no metacognitive "self" observing the thoughts. There is only awareness within which both thoughts and the concept of a self arise.
This sounds too confusing, does it?
Bear with me.
Let’s examine this for a second.
Breaking Free from the Illusion of Thought
Consider this: every thought you've ever had about yourself is just that - a thought.
Every identity you've constructed, every story you've told about who you are and what you're capable of, every limitation you've accepted - these are all just thoughts appearing in consciousness.
The Mind is cunning.
Look at all the lies that the mind keeps spinning:
“I’ve never been good at math, so I’ll never understand finance.”
“I’m not a natural leader, so I can’t take on that promotion.”
“I don’t deserve happiness because of my past mistakes.”
“I’m an introvert, so I am not good at networking.”
“I’m too old to learn a new skill.”
“I’m just not a creative person.”
“I’ve always been bad with money.”
“I’m the type of person who gets anxious in new situations.”
“I can’t stick to habits - I am ADHD.”
“If I had more money, I’d finally be at peace.”
“If I find the right partner, I’ll feel complete.”
“If I achieve X, then I’ll finally be good enough.”
Are these thoughts real?
The conventional approach treats thoughts as representations of reality. Metacognition reveals thoughts for what they are - the constructions of reality.
Your thoughts aren't windows that show you what's truly there; they're your own individual simulation that creates what seems to be there. Kind of like your personal movie that your mind is showing to you through the kaleidoscope of your thinking. And the primary creation of thought is the illusory separate self - the "me" that seems to exist independent of experience.
This "me" is nothing but a collection of thoughts, sensations, and images glued together with the energy of your attention and your belief that this entanglement is you. When metacognitive awareness shines on this construction, its solidity begins to dissolve.
What remains is not emptiness or nihilism, but an expansive boundless field of pure awareness uncontaminated by limiting thoughts.
So now the question is: how can we shine the light to see the truth about the nature of thought?
Seeing Thought Without Judgment
A crucial aspect of metacognition is the quality of awareness that observes thought. This awareness is naturally non-judgmental. It doesn't evaluate thoughts as good or bad, correct or incorrect, right or wrong - it simply sees them as they are.
It is only the mind that judges. See for yourself. Whenever the judgment appears it always arises in the form of a voice inside your head - a judgmental thought formulated in judgmental words. Awareness does not judge. Awareness is what notices that the judgmental thought process takes place.
This non-judgmental awareness is transformative. Most of our suffering comes not from our thoughts themselves but from our resistance to them, our identification with them, and our evaluations of them.
When a difficult thought arises - the classic Impostor thought "I'm not good enough," for instance - most people either believe it completely or start fighting it. Both responses strengthen the thought - you engage with the thought and that perpetuates suffering.
Metacognitive awareness offers a third option: seeing the thought without either believing or resisting it but simply noticing it. "Ah, there's that 'I am not good enough' thought again. Well well…," If you simply notice the thought the detachment appears - it is the same detachment that arises when you simply notice a cloud passing across the sky.
Your thoughts are like clouds. They rise and fall, appear and disappear, and float constantly within the infinite sky of Awareness. You are that Awareness. Pure. Untouched. Boundless. Everything else is just weather.
This form of seeing without judgment doesn't make thoughts go away but it reveals their insubstantial nature. Thoughts continue to arise, but they no longer define your identity or limit your reality. You become free from the control your Mind is imposing on you. And when you are free from the association with thought - what do you think becomes possible?
Let’s see.
Why Metacognition is the Key to Material Success
I want to shift to the practical implications of this realization.
The things I am talking about here are far from being merely philosophical or spiritual. This is the secret key to cracking the code you have been looking for all your life - metacognition is the hidden foundation of all practical success in the world.
Every breakthrough in human achievement first begins with a metacognitive shift - that ability to step outside existing thought patterns and conjure new reality through new Thought.
Think about innovation.
The person who can challenge the status quo and question the assumptions that others take for granted - a person who can see thoughts as mental constructs rather than fixed realities - that person will have an extraordinary edge. They can imagine what others cannot because they're not confined by the same thought limitations.
And what is human’s major limitation?
That blind belief that you are some kind of Person - that Illusion of Personhood that stems from lifelong conditioning creates all the problems of a person, all the anxieties of the person, all the person’s self-imposed limitations. “I can’t”, “I have to”, “I should”, “I am the person who…” “I am the person that…” Self-inflicted lies conjured by the mind.
Consider leadership.
A leader who can observe their own emotional reactions without being controlled by them, who can recognize their biases and thought distortions in real-time, that kind of leader operates from a fundamentally different level of effectiveness than others.
He can read people. He can see the situation not obscured by mental fog. There are no ghosts in his mind obscuring his vision or he can see right through them. What kind of leader is the leader who learned how to tame every whim and movement of his mind?
Even in domains like productivity, metacognition makes all the difference. The ability to compartmentalize and step back from whatever the mind is telling you is urgent and immediate and evaluate your thoughts objectively transforms how you make decisions, and how you allocate your attention and energy.
Metacognition enables all areas of your life because it creates the gap between stimulus and response and in that gap emerges a possibility of a choice. A choice between a reaction and a conscious response. Without this gap, you live reacting to life dangling like a puppet pulled by the strings of the conditioned mind. With it, you become a creator of your experience - enabled with the ability to see right through the games of the mind - detached, free.
Here is a formula we have in coaching:
Performance = Potential - Interference.
Your Potential is given.
You don’t choose your brain, your body, your DNA, your starting point circumstances - the country or family to be born in, the culture, society, or the language that conditions you. What’s given is given - at a certain age you mature to the realization that it is now up to you to choose how to play the cards you have been dealt.
But what is Interference? The greatest interference of all…
It is the Interference of your own Mind. The Noise. All the limiting beliefs, fears, anxieties, identities and stories that we keep telling ourselves.
When the Mind learns how to go quiet - true Potential arises. It becomes a world-class Performance.
Is this level of performance something that is reserved only for the elite?
Not at all.
Everyone Can Develop Metacognitive Skills
Here's the good news: metacognitive capacity can be developed by anyone. Regardless of background, education, or current level of self-awareness.
The human nervous system already contains everything needed for metacognition. The ability to witness thought is a quality that is innate to consciousness itself. It's not something you need to train, gain, or acquire - it's something that you have always been but have not noticed.
Awareness is your True Nature.
Being and living as Awareness isn't about intellectual sophistication or psychological complexity. Some of the most intellectually brilliant people have poor metacognitive skills, while some people with little to no formal education possess profound self-awareness.
Why?
It’s simple.
The development of metacognition doesn't depend on what you know, but on how you relate to what you know. It's not about accumulating more information (more thoughts to work with). It is about shifting your very relationship to thinking itself.
Also, metacognition isn't primarily developed through techniques or practices. There are tools and methods that can be useful, which we'll explore shortly, but the pre-requisite for developing metacognitive skills is very straightforward - it is simply a profound and sincere desire to understand the nature of your own mind.
This desire can't be manufactured nor it can be forced. It either arises or it doesn't.
But when it does - when a person becomes unapologetically serious, I would even say ruthless, about self-realization, when the one focuses all his intention on understanding the inner workings and hidden mechanisms of the mind - metacognitive development becomes natural. And not just that.
It becomes inevitable.
The Practice of Metacognition
Now let's address the paradox of metacognitive practice.
On one hand, metacognition isn't a technique you apply as a separate self. It's the natural expression of awareness recognizing its own nature. From this perspective, there is no "how" and nothing you "should" do. All the “how” and “what should I do"?” questions are nonsensical. Only sincere desire can transform.
On the other hand, metacognitive awareness doesn't spontaneously stabilize without some form of practice or inquiry. There are approaches that can facilitate its emergence and development - and these apporaches are in fact different forms of self-observation.
So we find ourselves in the territory where non-dual understanding meets practical methodology. This is the place where "there is nothing to do and no one to do it" meets "here are some things that might be helpful."
Prescriptions are for the unserious. But for the one who is serious, the following pointers might be helpful on the path.
Pointers to Break Free from Illusion
Before we discuss specific practices, for those who seek to understand what they are beyond the thought I will leave these direct pointers:
1. You are not your thoughts.
Right now, become aware of a thought passing through your mind. Any thought. Now ask yourself: If you can observe this thought, how can you be this thought? The observer cannot be the observed. For you to be able to witness the thought the Object-Subject relationship must take place. The Thought is the Object. Then who is the Subject? Notice this. Notice your noticing. You know that you are aware of the thought. But this is not what in fact is happening - you are not just aware of the thought, you are the awareness itself in which all thoughts appear. You are not the thoughts themselves.
2. Everything you believe yourself to be is a mental construction.
Your name, your history, your personality, your identity, your past and what you call your future, your strengths and weaknesses perceived by you - all of these exist as conceptions - meaning - thoughts and images in consciousness. They have no substantial reality beyond the attention you give them. They are real only for the moment you are focusing on them. If you completely stop thinking about yourself for a moment, what remains? Try that. You see, there is no Identity if the Mind is empty. No content of the mind = no person.
3. Your identity is a product of conditioning.
Every aspect of what you call "me" or "myself" was programmed through that which you call your past experience. Your preferences, beliefs, reactions, and self-image - none of these were chosen by you. They were installed as a product of conditioning. First by your family, then by your school, your society, your culture, your language, your tradition, random experiences - not the experiences themselves but your interpretation of those experiences - the stories you stored inside your immature mind that was not yet capable of metacognitive awareness at that time. Now, you have that ability. You have the ability to not just think stuff, but think about your thinking.
4. The separate self is an illusion.
Look carefully for this "self" that supposedly thinks your thoughts and makes your decisions. Where exactly is it? Where is it located? What colour is it? What shape? When you search for that “self” honestly, with scrutiny, can you find anything solid? Anything palpable? All you find are sensations, thoughts, and perceptions. But there is no entity that could be called a "self." The self is not a thing but a process. That “I” that you have always believed yourself to be is nothing but a center of gravity created by the mind for practical purposes. You do not exist. “I” is an illusion.
5. Awareness itself is already free.
The awareness reading these words right now - has it ever been damaged by any thought or experience? Does it have boundaries or limitations? Has it ever been limited or confined? Has it ever been born or died? This pristine awareness is your true nature. It is calm. It is serene. It’s ever-present. And it is already completely free, regardless of the content appearing within it. Understanding this is the One and Only Freedom - Freedom from Self conjured by the Thinking Mind.
The Paradox of Practice
Now, as you are noticing the truth that is already present, here and now, let's address the practical question of how to stabilize this recognition in everyday life.
I once again want to point at this mind trap.
Listen.
If I tell you exactly what to do, and you follow those instructions in a mechanical, prescriptive way, you'll miss the very thing we're pointing to. You'll turn metacognition into another technique applied by a fictional self, rather than noticing it as pure awareness.
A serious human who truly wants to understand the true nature of the mind will discover what they need to discover. No technique, no book, no podcast, no spiritual teaching, and no methodology can substitute sincerity fueled by a genuine desire to know the Truth.
For those who are serious, however, certain approaches can facilitate the development of metacognitive capacity.
Not as prescriptions to follow, but as experiments within your inner reality to engage with.
Practices for Developing Metacognitive Skills
With that being said, here are some approaches that can support metacognitive development:
1. Meditative Inquiry
Not meditation as a technique for self-improvement, not as a religious practice, not as a therapeutic exercise to calm the mind.
But as a direct investigation into the nature of mind and awareness.
Sitting quietly, staring into the darkness of yourself, and observing what the mind is doing.
Ask yourself:
What is this voice?
What is the space between the thoughts?
What is the content of my mind?
Who is that which I have always called “I”?
Who is constantly talking inside my head?
This isn't about arriving at conceptual answers, but about looking at your direct experience itself.
There is nothing you can attain through intellectualization. Smart words and teachings are just an obstacle on the way. Words are reflections of thoughts.
Thoughts cannot describe what the state of No Thought is like. One must attain this as Experiential Confirmation.
2. Journaling as Metacognitive Training
Writing can be a powerful tool for externalizing thought and creating distance from it. Sit down and get your mind out of your system. Literally.
Practice:
Stream-of-consciousness writing where you observe thoughts arising without editing or directing them
Dialoguing with different aspects of yourself as if they were separate entities
Writing from the third person point of view looking at yourself as a single-player game character
Revisiting past journal entries with fresh eyes to see how your perspectives have shifted
The key is to use writing not just to express thoughts, but to observe the thinking process itself, and then challenge it.
Pressure-test everything that is coming out of you.
Do not trust anything you believe. Every thought is a lie.
3. Working with AI as a Metacognitive Mirror
This is a fascinating new time. Advanced language models can be programmed to function as metacognitive coaches that reflect your own thinking patterns back to you.
By journaling into these systems and programming them to ask specific types of questions, you create an external metacognitive mirror that can help you see patterns you might otherwise miss.
The model becomes trained on your particular thought patterns and can highlight recurring themes, assumptions, and blind spots in your thinking.
A well-programmed LLM can be your coach, your therapist, and your cognitive sparring partner. All in one.
I have been writing a lot about how to leverage AI to develop metacognitive skills, visit these to learn more:
4. Expanding Mental Models
Metacognition is enhanced by having multiple perspectives available. The more mental models you can draw upon, the more flexibility you have in how you interpret experience.
This involves deliberately studying diverse fields and perspectives - not to accumulate knowledge, but to recognize how upgrading your mental frameworks constructs reality in different ways.
When you can shift fluidly between scientific, artistic, philosophical, and spiritual perspectives on the same phenomenon, you're no longer trapped in any single thought system. You start seeing and organizing your Mind as a System - your personal MindOS.
5. Modeling Others and NLP
Neuro-Linguistic Programming offers a great toolkit for metacognitive development. Particularly the practice of "modelling" others by adopting their perceptual positions and cognitive strategies (aka mental models).
By temporarily stepping into how another person processes reality, you create distance from your own thinking patterns and recognize them as just one possible way of constructing experience.
You only know how to think as You.
Can you learn how to think like the other 8 billion people on this planet?
NLP works because it directly addresses the mechanisms through which language shapes perception and self-concept. In coaching, we have a saying:
The words you use become the house you are living in.
Do you want to change your reality? Change the language.
By becoming aware of your inner linguistic patterns and mechanisms, you gain freedom from their unconscious influence and attain the ability to reprogram the mind.
6. Re-authoring Identity
Once metacognitive awareness reveals the constructed nature of identity, you can begin to consciously start the Identity reconstruction.
This isn't about replacing one fixed identity with another, but about developing a fluid relationship with identity itself - recognizing your Ego, your Concept of Self, as a tool rather than a truth.
We can’t get rid of Ego. We still operate in the reality we call material. We need the Ego for practical purposes.
Identity Reconstruction might include:
Deliberately adopting new narratives about yourself and observing how experience shifts
Identifying limiting beliefs and tracing them down to their origins
Creating identity statements that align with your deepest values rather than external conditioning
Identity Demolition - dissecting and breaking all narratives down to the foundational truth
7. Systems Thinking as Practice
Systems thinking is metacognition applied to complexity.
It trains the mind to see relationships, patterns, and emergent properties rather than isolated entities. It trains the mind to see the mind as a system.
By practicing systems thinking, you develop the habit of looking for the larger contexts in which experiences arise, rather than believing what they at first appear to be.
This naturally undermines the illusion of the separate self by revealing how thoroughly interconnected everything that is happening inside your mind is.
The Ultimate Practice: Living the Question
Beyond all approaches, the most powerful practice is simply living with the question of who or what you really are.
Not rushing to answer.
Not accepting second-hand answers from traditions, religions, philosophies or spiritual teachings.
Not settling for conceptual understanding.
Instead, holding the question open in everyday life:
Who is aware of this experience right now?
What is the nature of this awareness?
Is there actually a separate self experiencing this moment, or is that itself just another appearance within awareness?
When these questions become a living breathing presence rather than empty intellectualization, metacognition ceases to be a practice and becomes your natural way of being.
I know it might be hard to believe at this point. But a Thoughtless state is the Natural State. Constant Thinking is a disease that by definition is close to insanity.
Last words: Beyond Metacognition
Ultimately, mature metacognitive development leads to its own transcendence.
The witness perspective - standing apart from experience to observe it - eventually dissolves.
There is no more Witness.
The only thing that is left is the recognition that there is only this experience happening, with no separate experiencer. This is your natural state. And it is available right here right now for all human beings.
This is the final insight of metacognition. There is no "meta" position outside of consciousness itself.
There is no Thinker. There is no Observer.
There is only this - awareness and its ever-changing content: thoughts, memories, future projections, ideas, sensations, emotions, feelings - the Experience itself.
And interestingly enough, it's from this recognition of non-separation that the full practical power of metacognition emerges.
When you're no longer identified with any particular content of consciousness, you can work with all content with complete freedom and creativity.
There is no You that is doing the work anymore. The False Self has been destroyed. Something is working through you.
When there is no You, there is no one to create Inner Resistance.
And for the One who has no Inner Resistance - the whole Universe surrenders.
The material success that metacognition enables doesn't come from better mind control or some sophisticated methods of manipulation of reality.
It comes from the recognition that you are not separate from reality and you never have been - that your consciousness and the world arise together as One - One unified and infinite field of possibility.
From this realization, transformation becomes effortless.
Not because you've become better at changing things, not because you have become awakened, but simply because you've recognized that you are the very space in which all the change naturally unfolds.
This is the metacognitive revolution.
Not a new technique for the mind, but the recognition of what we have always been: the aware space in which all techniques, all thoughts, all experiences, and all possibilities appear and disappear like waves on the ocean of consciousness itself.
Buddha said that anyone can be Buddha. This is what he meant.
Every human being is carrying a seed of Freedom within themselves. This hibernating capacity to transform entirely the very relationship with thinking - to transcend the Thinking Mind.
The only water this seed needs to awaken is the energy of your awareness directed at its own source.
Notice this.
It’s time to wake up.
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